{"id":1033,"date":"2016-09-21T18:14:14","date_gmt":"2016-09-21T22:14:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/magwriting\/?p=1033"},"modified":"2016-09-21T20:31:44","modified_gmt":"2016-09-22T00:31:44","slug":"hopping-freight-trains-with-dirty-kids-slideshow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/magwriting\/hopping-freight-trains-with-dirty-kids-slideshow\/","title":{"rendered":"Hopping freight trains with the dirty kids – slideshow"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York Times article<\/a><\/p>\n

Ever hear of the dirty kids \u201cmovement\u201d?\u00a0 Perhaps some of you have, given that its origins are in the millennial generation.\u00a0 I had not.\u00a0 But still \u2026 the lifestyle it represents is almost timeless.\u00a0 Perhaps it was just called train hopping in days past, those we called hobos traveling the rails.<\/p>\n

I have been privy to stories about these travelers from my husband, who grew up in an isolated spot next to the amazingly beautiful Hudson River in Poughkeepsie, New York, just yards from the Hudson rail line.\u00a0 He tells stories of seeing hobos walk the rails and camp around the bend from his house, of smelling their campfires and of polite but weird encounters with these travelers, sometimes in broad daylight and many times in the dark of night.\u00a0 The contrasts these stories bring up are incredible.\u00a0 The majestic Hudson, with its soothing sounds of water lapping onto the rocks contrasted to the deafening roar of trains approaching and receding; the image of fast-moving freights, carrying the latest in consumer goods, passing by bums who meander along in no particular hurry, hoping for scraps to cook on their campfires.\u00a0 And so, this story captured my attention.<\/p>\n

The dirty kids have been called a movement, although that may suggest something on a grander scale than is probably the case.\u00a0 Nevertheless, they are mostly young people who have decided to live a traveling life on the rails, occasionally staying in a cheap motel along the way or hitchhiking on a highway.\u00a0 They may occasionally work at a stop-over point but more often rely on money from panhandling.\u00a0 They are vagabonds who scoff at a traditional lifestyle and form bonds with their comrades on the rails.<\/p>\n

This New York Times article<\/a>, published on March 8, 2016, is about the dirty kids.\u00a0 It includes a slideshow which tells the story even more powerfully than does the text.\u00a0 I believe it contains a good assortment of images, well done photographically (although I\u2019m probably not well qualified to judge), with fair to good captions.\u00a0 There is just one picture in the slideshow that I think is weak \u2013 #16, showing hands and partial arms reaching up toward sky.\u00a0 The intent may have been to show exhilaration but it probably could have been cropped differently \u2013 to show less sky and more of the arms in addition to hands.\u00a0 Captions are placed to the side and do not cover the photographs at all, which is good.\u00a0 Words are white against a dark background and are readable.\u00a0 One somewhat negative comment I have is that some of the individuals named in the captions could be described beyond just their first names \u2013 even something simple like, \u201cTiffany joined the group in Alabama\u201d would give some context.\u00a0 Despite those minor critiques, I think it\u2019s a good slideshow that complements the article.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New York Times article Ever hear of the dirty kids \u201cmovement\u201d?\u00a0 Perhaps some of you have, given that its origins are in the millennial generation.\u00a0 I had not.\u00a0 But still \u2026 the lifestyle it represents is almost timeless.\u00a0 Perhaps it was just called train hopping in days past, those we called hobos traveling the rails. … Continue reading Hopping freight trains with the dirty kids – slideshow<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1997,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[47],"class_list":["post-1033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-module-5","tag-photos"],"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7Ndkv-gF","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/magwriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/magwriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/magwriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/magwriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1997"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/magwriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/magwriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/magwriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/magwriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/magwriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}